When Pastors need Pastoral Care

In 2022, my wife, Tiffany, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had been in ministry since I was 16, and throughout those years I had been blessed by mentors who were honest about both the beauty and the cost of ministry. I understood that ministry would require sacrifice. I knew there would be difficult seasons, unexpected losses, and moments when serving people would be inconvenient or painful. What I had not fully understood was how difficult it would be when life at home became heavy while the responsibilities of ministry continued at their normal pace.

Cancer did not pause our ministry calendar. There were hospital visits, chemotherapy appointments, surgeries, treatments, and difficult decisions, but there were also Sunday services, staff meetings, counseling appointments, weddings, funerals, and people who needed their pastor. Life continued in both places at the same time.

Early in my wife’s treatment, our family was supposed to attend a wedding in California. Tiffany was already weakened by treatment, but she encouraged me to take our children and go. She told me she would be fine and wanted them to enjoy the trip. I knew there were people who could care for her, but I could not bring myself to leave. It was not because I lacked confidence in the people around us. I simply could not imagine being across the country while my wife was walking through something so difficult, so I stayed.

A few months later, in February 2023, a close friend in our church died unexpectedly. He was 40 years old, a husband and father of four, and someone I cared about deeply. One moment we were making plans for life together, and the next we were planning his funeral. By that point, the weight of the previous year had begun to catch up with me. I was grieving for my friend and his family, angry about the unfairness of his death, and exhausted from months of watching my wife battle cancer while continuing to lead a church.

After more than 20 years in ministry, I finally recognized something I had been reluctant to admit: I needed care too. That realization exposed something I think many pastors experience but rarely discuss. We spend so much of our lives learning how to care for other people that we can become remarkably good at giving care while becoming uncomfortable receiving it. We know how to sit beside someone in a hospital room, pray with a grieving family, visit someone who is struggling, or encourage a church member through a difficult season. When the person who needs that same care is the pastor, however, things can become more complicated.

Even Moses Needed Someone to Hold Up His Hands

Part of the problem is the way we sometimes think about pastoral leadership. There can be an unspoken assumption that because a pastor is responsible for helping spiritually equip others, he should somehow always be spiritually equipped himself. Because people look to him for strength, he can begin to believe that showing weakness is somehow a failure of leadership. Yet Scripture gives us a different picture of what leadership looks like when the leader becomes weary.

In Exodus 17, Israel was fighting the Amalekites while Moses stood on a hill overlooking the battle with the staff of God in his hands. As long as his hands remained raised, Israel prevailed, but as the battle continued, Moses became tired. He was still God’s chosen leader, still doing exactly what God had called him to do, and yet he reached the point where he could no longer sustain the posture required of him.

The response of Aaron and Hur is what has stayed with me. They came alongside Moses, gave him a place to sit, and held up his hands when he could no longer hold them up himself. Moses’ need for help was not evidence that he was unqualified to lead, nor was it evidence that he had somehow failed God. It was simply evidence that he was human. God did not remove Moses from his responsibility because he became tired. Instead, God provided people who could help him continue.

That seems like an important lesson for the church to recover. A pastor needing support does not necessarily mean something has gone wrong with his calling or leadership. Sometimes it simply means he has reached the limits of what one person can carry. The church is not only called to support a pastor when something has gone terribly wrong; it is called to help create an environment where pastors can remain healthy enough to serve faithfully over the long haul.

That distinction became especially clear to me during my wife’s cancer treatment because crisis care and sustained care are not the same thing.

Why Pastoral Care Must Continue Beyond the Crisis

When my wife began treatment, the response from our church family was extraordinary. People brought meals to our home, checked on us, helped with our children, and showed kindness in ways that we will never forget. People we barely knew sometimes showed up at our door simply because they wanted to help. My wife was carrying the burden of cancer while continuing to carry the daily responsibilities of caring for our children, and I was trying to care for her while also carrying the responsibilities of leading a church. In many ways, we were being held up by a community that loved us.

But there is something about long-term suffering that is different from crisis. A diagnosis is an event. Surgery is an event. The beginning of chemotherapy is an event. People know what to do with events. They bring a meal, make a phone call, visit the hospital, or pray.

Eventually, however, the calendar moves forward. The surgery is over, but recovery continues. Chemotherapy ends, but treatment continues. The initial diagnosis becomes something people heard about months ago, while for the person living through it, the experience remains part of everyday life.

That happened to us. As our journey moved from surgery and chemotherapy into ongoing treatment and maintenance, the intensity of the support naturally decreased. It did not disappear because people stopped caring. In many cases, people simply returned to their own lives. The crisis had become a long-term reality, and long-term realities are much harder to sustain attention around.

I began to notice the difference. In the early days, there always seemed to be someone checking in. Later, there were fewer calls and visits. What had once felt like a large community surrounding our family became a smaller circle of people who continued to stay present. I do not say that as an indictment of our church. In fact, I am deeply grateful for the people who continued to walk with us. Rather, our experience helped me understand how difficult sustained care can be, even among people who genuinely love one another.

I have talked with other pastors who have walked through cancer and other prolonged hardships with their families, and I have heard similar stories. The church often responds beautifully to the initial crisis, but the longer middle can be much quieter. We are often good at responding when something happens, but we may not have considered how to care for someone when the difficult season becomes their new normal.

That “long middle” is where I think the church has an opportunity to grow, because pastors are not exempt from needing the same kind of sustained care that we encourage others to receive.

The Power of Ordinary Friendship and Practical Support

When I think about the people who cared for me during that season, many of the most meaningful moments were not complicated or dramatic. One of the things I appreciated most was when an elder or friend would simply tell me, “No agenda. I just want to see how you are doing.” That phrase removed the pressure to give an update on the church, explain how I was handling everything, or turn the conversation into a ministry discussion. Someone was simply interested in me as a person.

During my sabbatical, two friends picked me up and spent a day with me. We went to the range, had lunch, and spent time together without any ministry expectations attached to the day. On the drive home, I was tired in a way I had not realized, and I eventually fell asleep in the car. It was an ordinary day, but looking back, I realize how much I needed it. For a few hours, I did not have to be the pastor who had answers or the leader who needed to carry responsibility. I could simply be a friend spending time with friends.

Another moment has stayed with me. The day after my wife came home from her first surgery, an elder’s wife came to our house carrying dinner, board games, and coloring books for our children. She was not there to give me advice about leadership or offer an explanation for what our family was experiencing. She simply entered into the practical reality of our home. By giving attention to our children, she created space for me to care for my wife without feeling like I had to manage everything else at the same time. That kind of care is easy to underestimate because it does not look particularly spiritual, but it was profoundly pastoral.

I grew up watching my dad cook for people, and over the years I have found myself doing the same thing, often making meals such as chicken enchiladas for families going through difficult seasons. That has taught me something about ministry that I have not always understood as a pastor: care does not have to be complicated to be meaningful. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is show up, share a meal, sit at the table, and let someone know they do not have to walk through a difficult season by themselves.

Pastors need that kind of care too. We need people who know us well enough to notice when something is wrong. We need friends with whom we do not have to be the pastor. We need elders who care about our souls and not merely our effectiveness. We need people who can ask how we are doing and genuinely want the answer.

We also need to learn how to receive that care without feeling guilty about it.

One of the challenges of pastoral ministry is that people often see the pastor primarily through the lens of his calling. They see the person preaching, leading, counseling, praying, visiting, and making decisions. They see the role, but underneath the role is a person who experiences grief, fear, exhaustion, disappointment, family struggles, and seasons of uncertainty just like everyone else.

That does not diminish the calling. It reminds us why pastoral care matters.

Creating a Church Culture That Cares for Pastors

If we want pastors to faithfully serve churches for decades rather than simply survive difficult seasons, we need to think beyond crisis intervention. Churches can develop rhythms of care that exist even when nothing is visibly wrong. An elder might schedule a regular breakfast with the pastor and intentionally make the conversation about his life rather than church business. A church might protect a pastor’s sabbatical rather than treating it as a reward for exceptional performance. Friends might invite the pastor to dinner without expecting him to talk about ministry. Someone might simply call and ask how he is doing and then have the patience to listen to the answer.

None of these things are revolutionary, but they can be deeply restorative.

Pastoral care for pastors is ultimately about creating a culture where leaders can be human without losing trust and where receiving care is considered a normal part of ministry rather than an indication that something has gone wrong. A pastor who is cared for will still experience exhaustion, disappointment, grief, and discouragement, but he does not have to experience those things in isolation.

Pastors Should Not Have to Carry Their Burdens Alone

I still think about Moses standing on that hill. He was exactly where God had called him to be, doing exactly what God had asked him to do, and eventually his arms became too heavy to hold up. God’s answer was not to shame Moses for being tired or remove him from his calling. God provided Aaron and Hur.

That image has changed the way I think about pastoral ministry. The goal is not to create pastors who never need help. It is to create churches where pastors can receive the help they need before exhaustion becomes collapse. We sometimes confuse independence with strength, celebrating the pastor who can carry enormous responsibility, absorb criticism, navigate crisis, preach every week, and continue moving forward without asking much from anyone. Scripture, however, does not present self-sufficiency as the ideal. Even Moses needed someone to hold up his hands.

That means the question for churches is not simply whether the pastor is leading well. We should also ask whether someone is caring for the pastor who is leading us. Pastors should ask themselves a similar question: Have I allowed myself to be pastored, or have I simply become accustomed to giving care without receiving it?

It is possible to spend years teaching others about community while living in isolation. It is possible to encourage others to seek help while convincing ourselves that we should be able to handle our own burdens. It is possible to become so accustomed to being the person who shows up for everyone else that receiving care begins to feel uncomfortable.

I know because I have been there.

My experience with my wife’s cancer and the loss of my friend did not teach me that pastors are fragile. It taught me that pastors are human. It also taught me that God often cares for his leaders through the people he has placed around them.

Aaron and Hur did not remove the battle from Moses. They did not take away his responsibility or make the work unnecessary. They simply came alongside him when he could no longer carry the weight by himself.

Perhaps that is one of the most important forms of pastoral care the church can offer. We cannot remove the difficult parts of ministry, and we cannot promise pastors that they will never face exhaustion, grief, conflict, or loss. What we can do is build churches where the people carrying those burdens know they do not have to carry them alone.

The health of a church is reflected not only in how effectively its leaders serve, but also in whether those leaders have people who will stand beside them when they are weary. Exodus 17 reminds us that even Moses needed Aaron and Hur. He still had a battle to lead, but he did not have to hold up his own hands alone.

Pastors spend their lives holding up the hands of others. The church must be willing to hold up theirs.

Author: Lito Solorio

Lito Solorio is the Lead Pastor of Countryside Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas